466 
Bones and Sulphuric Acid as Manures. 
casks — say each to hold from 60 to 70 gallons. Into each of these^ 
in the first place, we put 4 bushels of bone-dust, weighing 168 lbs. 
We then weigh out 84 lbs. of acid (half the weight of the bones), and 
immediately pour it and three times its weight of water (252 lbs. 
or about 25 gallons) into one of the casks. The same being done 
to all the casks, each will contain (at 4 bushels per acre) manure 
for an acre of land. When this is wanted for use, for which in the 
course of two or three days it will be ready, the casks may be taken 
to the field, and a certain part or proportion of the mixture taken 
out, and the proper quantity of water (at the rate of fifty times the 
weight of the acid) added. In order to do this conveniently, a rod, 
marked so that when inserted in the mixture it should show the 
quantity in the cask, should be procured. When, therefore, a quan- 
tity was required we can, by the aid of the rod, take out one-tenth 
or one-twentieth of the mixture at convenience ; thus say the q lan- 
tity for the acre in one of these casks should be 50 gallons, and we 
take out sufficient for one-twentieth of an acre — this is 2i gallons. 
Now the whole cask requires diluting with fifty times the weight of 
the acid of water — i.e., with fifty times 84 lbs., or 4200 lbs., or 
420 gallons — before it is applied to the soil ; hence one-twentieth 
of 420 gallons, or 21 gallons of water, must be added to the 2^ 
gallons, when it is put into the vessel by which it is spread. This 
calculation once made, we should knovv for the future that each 
cask required diluting with 420 gallons of water, and each gallon 
of the mixture (if there were 50 gallons in each cask) with rather 
more than 8 gallons of water. 
The method of using this liquid is by some considered a {/reat 
obstacle to the general application of the tillage; one cause of which 
objection is said to be the inconvenience of having the manure in a 
liquid form. In reply to which it may be urged, that as plants 
require their food to be in a state of solution, any extra trouble 
from such an application is repaid by the extra benefit to the 
crop ; that as the quantity of water used is not necessarily very 
great, it is probable that a much less quantity, even than has yet 
been ventured upon, will serve our purpose, and that mechanical 
arrangements may be made so as to apply the mixture to the soil 
with uniformity and ease. The fact, however, that as yet there has 
been no machine brought out for the .s/iecmZ purpose of eflfecting 
the distribution of the dissolved bones, is the ground-work, in most 
cases, of the impression that the process is a difficult one, for the 
indisposition to use our ingenuity in a matter of the sort is pretty 
general. It was, however, always so. 'I'he progress of agricul- 
tural mechanism was slow while it depended chiefly upon the sug- 
gestions of the farmer, who, though he had the best opportunity of 
designing that which was most useful, did not make use of it. 
The encouragement afforded by our agricultural societies to talent 
